Uncovering the Neural Processes of Privacy: A Neurally Informed Behavioral Intervention to Protect Information Privacy

People are increasingly aware that their information is being tracked online. Although people generally self-report privacy to be important to them, in practice they often disclose far more private information than their self-reported privacy preferences denote. This “privacy paradox” could be better understood by uncovering the neural processes underlying the privacy calculus: weighing the risks against the benefits of disclosure. We assess the neural processes shaping privacy tradeoffs to characterize the neural mechanisms underlying privacy tradeoffs to design behavioral interventions that help people make better decisions that align with their privacy preferences. In Study 1, we used functional MRI (fMRI) to identify the neural correlates of the privacy calculus while participants integrated information about the benefits and risks of sharing information. fMRI results revealed that activation in the medial prefrontal cortex and the caudate nucleus tracked the perceived attractiveness of the benefits, while activation in the insula, amygdala, lateral prefrontal cortex, and temporoparietal junction tracked the perceived intrusiveness of sensitive privacy questions. The lateral prefrontal and dorsomedial prefrontal cortices integrate these signals to guide information disclosure, and this prefrontal-parietal network was previously implicated in directing one’s attention. Interestingly, these fMRI findings suggest that attentional processes at the time of choice guide people’s decisions whether to disclose private information. We leveraged these brain insights to design and test a neurally informed behavioral intervention to help people protect their privacy (Study 2). Our results show that altering the timing when information is presented precisely at the time of decision (specifically within a second) directs attention to privacy risks versus benefits, therefore discouraging participants from liberally disclosing their private information. Identifying the underlying neural processes of privacy helps elucidate the privacy calculus and sheds light on the privacy paradox and guides the design of neurally informed behavioral interventions to help people protect their privacy.